


Continuation

by myhomeistheshire



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-10 00:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12899670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myhomeistheshire/pseuds/myhomeistheshire
Summary: Their mission is over; they are dealing/breaking/falling.Or, what happens after the finale.





	Continuation

Two weeks after everything is finished, Dinah is finally released from the hospital.

Her mother calls immediately once she finds out; she wants to come over, wants to see her, wants to help. Wants to take the shrapnel that is her daughter and form it back up into the semblance of a person. Dinah listens to her voicemail and texts back,  _ recovering. Give me some time. _

She goes back to work immediately, even though she’s confined to desk duty until she receives a clean bill of health. Someone new is at Sam’s desk.

 

At the hospital she had medication that gave her a sweet, dreamless sleep, but back home it’s different. Every night, Dinah trails her fingers through the weaving entanglement that is sleep. Lets herself drift on the edges of the darkness; just enough that her breathing evens out and her mind clears in a way she’s only discovered after too many drinks. Until she’s almost asleep; until she tears herself awake. It’s self-preservation, she swears to herself after the fifth night of not sleeping; it’s better than the nightmares. It’s better to relive Stein’s bloodstained face with all the lights in her apartment turned on, than in her bed without the ability to distract herself. 

Sometimes, when she pulls out the bottle of cheap whiskey underneath the sink, she thinks it’s better not to relive it at all.

 

It’s a week before she passes out at her desk at 2pm on a Thursday. She wakes up on the floor, half expecting Sam to be there with a worried look on his face; or Billy to waltz in with a witty rebuke. It sends acid shooting through her veins, this particular strain of grief she’s been avoiding - because she isn’t just mourning the loss of her friend; a part of her is mourning the man his killer hadn’t turned out to be.

 

 

* * *

 

Karen goes back to writing. She bullies Ellison into letting her take the numerous crime pieces that stick out at her; that tingle along her spine, the ones that whisper  _ look here _ . She tells herself that it’s because she wants to help people. She ignores the part of her that knows how the dark streets and danger of Hell’s Kitchen call to her; how she has Florence Nightingale in her blood and the only patient is herself. How she does not want to be saved.

 

The flowers have been in her window for six days. She has had no visitors.

 

Foggy catches up with her at Josie’s on the seventh night, as she’s starting her third vodka soda. Slides into the seat next to her like she’d called him, orders a highball for himself before addressing her.

“I’ve been reading your pieces,” he tells her without a greeting; “you’ve been keeping busy.”

“Well, you know,” Karen laughs but it gets caught it her throat, twisted, comes out half a sob. “Might as well embrace it at this point.”

“No word from your gun-toting maniac?” He asks, and she lifts her head to stare at the ceiling.

_ Why do I hurt everyone I care about _ , she wants to say,  _ why is there so much death around me; _ but he would ask her what she meant. Because he knows about Matt, but not about Kevin, Wesley, James. Doesn’t know that she holds too many souls in her hands to not feel the weight of their guilt in every waking moment. She can’t imagine what he would say if he knew she’d shot not one but two people, or how he would look at her if he realized how deeply she belonged to this corrupt sinkhole of a place.

 

“He’s gone,” is all she replies, and leaves the bar not too much later. Sits in an alley too far from her apartment with one hand on the .380 in her purse, daring the universe.  _ Come get me. Give me a reason to prove myself right. _

 

She sits outside all night, until her clothes are damp and her neck is sore and the inside of herself is imploding. And on this day of days, she sits in a dark alley in Hell’s Kitchen and is untouched by violence.

 

  
  


* * *

 

 

Frank tries to rebuild.

 

It’s impossible, to find something worth holding onto now that his focus is gone. He does his best, though - goes to Curtis’ meetings every week, tries to make friends. But some days he still finds himself on the New York streets, waiting for an opportunity - a mugger, a rapist, a pimp. Someone he can’t just walk away from.

 

This is where he finds Karen.

 

He hasn’t called her since he’s died, this second time. He knows she’ll hate him for it, but he can’t bring himself to see her - not when he’s still this broken. Not when there’s a chance she’ll break with him.

 

So he avoids her as long as he can, until he finds her in a back alley crouched against a graffitied wall, the hilt of a gun carelessly grasped in her hand. He climbs up the fire escape to reach the roof of the building next to her, and perches on top to wait. She doesn’t move but she isn’t asleep, and he wants to shake her. Wants to scoop her up into his arms and bring her somewhere she’ll be safe. Because it is too obvious here, in the shadows and streetlights, that she is not safe; not alright. She is shaking except for the hand on the gun, shivering from the sprinkle of rain and from something else; he hears her sob once, and then go silent. She doesn’t move until the sun rises, when she pulls herself up to standing, lets go of the gun. Leaves her heels behind the dumpster and walks barefoot halfway across Hell’s Kitchen to her apartment door.

 

Frank sees the flowers in her window. Wonders if his appearance would make things better or worse; what worse than an alley with a gun and no inhibitions would even look like. He stays away.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> In this fictitious backstory of my own making, James is the first person Karen shot.


End file.
